High-powered lasers are an important tool in both the manufacturing and defense fields, having a variety of applications in each field. Such applications may include cutting and welding in the equipment manufacturing fields and in directed energy weapons in the defense field.
In the defense field, for example, high-powered lasers have been adapted to be directed against ballistic missiles. The success of the Boeing YAL-1 as a missile defense system has demonstrated that high-powered lasers may provide an effective defense against hostile, incoming ballistic missiles.
In the manufacturing industry, high powered lasers may improve manufacturing efficiency by reducing the time required to cut through an object, weld parts together or otherwise work a piece of material.
One type of high-power laser that is especially effective is a chemical laser, such as the COIL (Chemical Oxygen-Iodine Laser) or AGIL (All Gas-phase Iodine Laser), capable of producing relatively high power (potentially in the megawatt range) in the infrared spectrum. However, such lasers consume and produce a number of potentially toxic and hazardous chemicals and gases, including chlorine, iodine, hydrogen peroxide, potassium hydroxide, hydrazoic acid, and nitrogen trichloride. Because of their hazardous and toxic nature, such chemical lasers must be carefully contained.
There exists in the art a need for an environmentally friendly and non-toxic system capable of producing a high power laser.
Sonoluminescence is a phenomenon whereby a high-frequency oscillating pressure wave is applied to a liquid medium to generate gas-filled bubbles that expand and catastrophically collapse. As the bubbles collapse, the energy stored in the bubbles is released as electromagnetic energy. The released electromagnetic energy typically is in the form of visible light emitted in a spectrum that may be similar to black body radiation. The individual power of the emitted light may be low, on the order of a few watts per square centimeter.
A number of experiments (e.g., “Single Bubble Sonoluminescence from Noble Gas Mixtures,” J. da Graça and H. Kojima, Phys. Rev. E66, 006301) have been conducted involving single-bubble sonoluminescence through the use of standing waves to produce static regions where local pressure transitions between high and low values corresponding to the amplitude of the fluctuating pressure wave. As the local pressure oscillates between low and high values, the size of the bubbles will increase and decrease. These experiments have shown that at high pressures and frequencies these single bubbles collapse to provide a regular pulse of sonoluminescent light lasting for approximately 40-50 picoseconds (ps). The deviation between these pulses is accurate to within approximately 50 ps, providing a clock-like synchronicity.
Various color spikes within the sonoluminescence spectrum are present depending on the gas within the bubble. These spikes may color the output of the sonoluminescent reaction to anywhere within the visible light spectrum. Further, as the bubble collapses, the temperature and pressure inside the bubble increase dramatically, which may result in a variety of chemical reactions that may change the profile of the gas within the bubble, causing color differentiation. Noble gases, such as argon, neon, xenon and the like, may be used to control the output color of light produced by sonoluminescence and reduce the chance of chemical reaction between the gas and surrounding liquid.